Ben Stein Wins Intelligent Design Money

[and-justice-for-all]

by SCIAM Observations

Reposted from:
http://science-community.sciam.com/blog-entry/Sciam-Observations/Ben-Stein-Wins-Intelligent-Design/300009517

by Gary Stix

Ben Stein was the goofball host of the cable show "Win Ben Stein's Money." A Christian University in southern California has just announced that it is honoring Stein for his upcoming movie that makes the case for taking intelligent design seriously. The press release, issued today, declares: "Ben Stein Wins Money from Intelligent Design Community."

Stein is scheduled to receive from Biola University the Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth, named after a well-known creationist. "The award," according to the release," recognizes Johnson's pivotal role in advancing our understanding of design in the universe by opening up informed dissent to Darwinian and materialistic theories of evolution."

The release does not mention how much Ben Stein won, but it does cite Stein's upcoming movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed:"

"In his new movie "Expelled," Stein wonders whether humans were designed by an intelligent being or whether we were simply the result of an ancient natural accident. In his search for an answer, he discovers an elitist scientific establishment that punishes the scientific proponents of Intelligent Design because they reject some of the claims of Darwin's theory of evolution. 'Big science in this area of biology has lost its way,' says Stein. 'Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it's anti-science.'

"In light of Stein's contribution to the pursuit of liberty and truth, particularly as it relates to the field of Intelligent Design, he is being honored with the 2008 Johnson Award. The award ceremony will feature premiere clips from the forthcoming movie, the personal appearance of scientists who were expelled from their jobs because they are sympathetic to Intelligent Design, and will include a brief address by Stein.."

The movie is a potential setback to science educators' continuing efforts to set the record straight because Stein, the son of renowned economist Herbert Stein, lends a patina of respectability to neo-Creationist science as a result of his status as a minor celebrity. Perhaps more egregious than the movie is Stein's contention in his writing that "Darwinism, perhaps mixed with Imperialism, gave us Social Darwinism, a form of racism so vicious that it countenanced the Holocaust against the Jews and mass murder of many other groups in the name of speeding along the evolutionary process."

What can only be hoped is that a trenchant critical response by journalistic and science publishing institutions (and, of course, the blogging community)--will suffice so that Ben Stein never gets funding to make an Expelled II. Please download the recent National Academy of Sciences report "Science, Evolution and Creationism" to get the straight story.

[jimlup]

1. Stein has always been good at keeping his head buried in the sand

He is an intelligent but stuburn man. What more could we expect from someone who, as a young aide, cried as the Nixon helicopter departed the White house for the last time.

[TZ]

2. Um what qualifications does this PUTZ have to talk about

Biology?! Fucking moron. He has NO science background AFAIK, he's an economics person.
Well lets just appoint me head of the Fed, cause I've read the tubes!
Idiot. Ben Stein=willful ignorance. Surprised Chimpy hasn't appointed him head of NIH.....:sarcasm:

[immoderate]

3. More opportunistic than smart.

--IMM

[Evoman]

4. The funniest part of that articel:

" recognizes Johnson's pivotal role in advancing our understanding of design in the universe by opening up informed dissent to Darwinian and materialistic theories of evolution"

Anyone who has read Darwin on Trial who knows anything about evolution knows that only a fucking moron would buy anything that shit head has to say.

[Kolesar]

6. Pretty cavalier use of the term "Holocaust"

It is pathetic that he invokes the term to make a boneheaded RW arguement. The Jewish community should object. They objected to Hansen calling the coal trains "death trains".

[progressoid]

5. He was on Jimmy Kimmel last night and talked about this movie briefly

His explanation was, to put it politely, lame. He said something like, he accepts evolution but it doesn't give us all the answers. So ya gotta have god to fill in all of the unknown stuff. :eyes:

[moggie]

7. Standard creationist trick

Like so many creationists, he expands the theory of evolution to cover other things, which he can then take pot shots at. For example, from an excellently snarky article in Colorado Confidential:

Paul Lauer: You mentioned that Darwinism appears to be lacking on certain fronts. From your research, and your travels, and interviews with many different scientists, what are some of the areas that scientists are, perhaps, increasingly saying are problematic with the theory of, Darwin's Theory of Evolution?

Ben Stein: Well, just a couple of them, I've already hit one is: Where did life come from? Second one is: How did the cell get so complex? Third one, which I think is overwhelming, and just sort of blows the whole theory of Random Mutation out of the water, is, at least, let me say, raises big questions, that is. Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from. Where did the laws of thermodynamics come from? Where did the laws of motion and, of heat come from? Where, I guess that's the same as thermodynamics. Where did all these laws, that make it possible for the universe to function, where did they all come from? Why isn't all just chaos and everything collapsing in on itself and killing everything? I think that's where the universe works. Who created these perfect laws, that keeps the planet in motion, keeps the blood pumping through our bodies? So, I think, all these are giant questions that need answers.

http://www.coloradoconfidential.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3463

Oh noes! The theory of evolution doesn't explain gravity! To these clowns, "evolution" and "Darwinism" (ugh, I hate that term) have essentially become code words standing for all of godless science. The biology classroom may be their current battle ground, but all of science is ultimately under threat.

[TZ]

8. You just hit it on the head Moggie

He cannot even keep separate the different sciences apart. Any NITWIT who doesn't understand that random mutation is DIFFERENT from natural selection (and where is the discussion of genetic drift, another important mechanism of evolution?) is not to be taken seriously. Cell complexity? HEY MORAN--read about how mitochondria used to be SEPARATE organisms!!
So since science doesn't have ALL the answers it must be GAWD's work? These are the same idiots that call SCIENTISTS arrogant?
Geezus fucking Christ, for someone who has a reputation as being "intelligent" he is ignorant.
Ben Stein, living proof that Intelligent Design is a MYTH.

[onager]

9. My usual Ben Whine trivia...

When not in Egypt I live in Los Angeles. Which as we all know, is a company town pretty much like Detroit or Sandusky, Ohio. Even Yer Major Im'potent Jernelists are often loathe to criticize the...erm...cough...entertainment industry.

But I bet they'd make an exception for Ben Whine, for at least one reason: there's absolutely no doubt that if the McCarthy Era repeats itself, Ben Whine would not only rat out people, he would probably help The New Joe McCarthy put on the handcuffs.

A brief career synopsis:

--Stein crawled, ratlike, into Hollywood in the late 1970's. He groveled, begged and fawned for screenwriting jobs. (He didn't sell his body for obvious reasons. I mean, JEBUS! Not even the drunkest drunk, on the darkest night, in that dark tunnel under North Hollywood Park...)

--He got one lucky break, which he has dismissed ever since as "a brief job with a major liberal Hollywood producer." That was Norman Lear, anathema to conservatives, which may be why Stein hates to give his name. But everybody knows it.

--Other than that, he hasn't had much of a movie career. His awful book "'Ludes" was made into a pretty good movie, "The Boost" with James Woods. But nobody was crazy enough to let Stein write the script. That job went to a real writer, Darryl Ponicsan. That must have pissed off Stein mightily. Heh!

--When movie producers didn't line up to hire him, Stein wrote a whiny book-length diatribe about the Evil Liberal Influence in Hollywood. Most reviewers tore the book to shreds. NEW WEST magazine said Stein wanted a movie industry that only produced movies about "good-hearted Republican Senators, benevolent defense contractors, and courageous Pentagon shills." (Or words to that effect. It's been a long time.)

--Then we come to Stein's big TV mini-series project...(drum roll)..."Amerika."

By the sweet angora sweaters of Edward D. Wood, that thing makes "Red Dawn" look like "Citizen Kane." I'm not even sure anybody spent the money to convert it to DVD.

The plot deals with a Commie takeover of America, fronted by the U.N. and...uh...American schoolteachers. It only worked as unintentional comedy. And maybe a guide to Stein's weird mentality.

Stein didn't get to write that one, either, ha-ha! But he got a story credit. (Which means a lot less money.)

--During the Last Days of the right-wing rag the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, that Hearst fishwrap occasionally threw him a job writing op-ed columns. Stein mostly wrote about pressing issues like the condo he bought in Malibu "as an investment."

He wrote one column about a young woman who worked as his personal assistant. Daddy bought the poor thing a new Alfa-Romeo, and she promptly wrecked it while driving drunk.

Stein wrote about the incident soliciting PITY for that dimwit. He was "surprised!!!" to get a ton of angry letters from people just struggling to make ends meet there in the Reagan Era. A common theme was that the little twit got exactly what was coming to her and she needed to do some hard jail time.

[TZ]

10. ROFL!!

Thats a great indictment of the idiot. Ben Stein is to Hollywood what that idiot Bolton is to the UN.....a hypocritical fraud!!
:applause:

[Deep13]

11. He was a douchebag when he worked for Nixon...

...and that has not changed.